Josh Dihle

I make abstract paintings that wear known images like masks.
While painting, I separate my subjects’ appearance from their
real-world obligations. When I paint plants, for example, they
cast implausible shadows and never quite recede into space.
The air, water, and landforms in my work are more indebted to
Paul Klee than Albrecht Dürer. I move these elements around the
canvas as I develop a work’s allover composition. I am looking for
queasy arrangements that undermine any obvious pictorial logic,
but which nonetheless strike a haphazard balance. By dealing
with these abstract visual ideas through banal imagery, I try to
un-know recognizable subjects. This forces a new reckoning with
images that feeds my visual curiosity and studio inquiry. I love
the studio routine, but I don’t trust it. I have found that the plain
labor of painting—the marshaling of color, form, and thought—
is an irrational behavior that grows unfamiliar and fascinating in
its insistence.